The use of pallet collars is an effective and inexpensive way of building a container to a desired height on a wooden pallet. The pallet collars may be used to transport a wide variety of goods that require some protection during the transportation. In the past, pallet collars have been manufactured manually which is a labor intensive and expensive process. Also, manual production of pallet collars often result in pallet collars that have a non-uniform quality. Manual production has proven to be particularly expensive and ineffective for large volume production. There is a need for an inexpensive and reliable automatic manufacturing process for making pallet collars with a uniformly high quality.
The present invention an effective automatic pallet collar apparatus that comprises a frame that has a fixed rail and a movable rail to adjust the width of the frame. A rotatable driving member is in operative engagement with the frame to move forward a set of wood members. A downstream sawing station saws the wood members into a precise length. The drilling station drills holes into the wood member and rivets are positioned into the holes at the rivet mounting station. A downstream turner station turns each wood member downside up and hinges are mounted onto the rivets at the hinge mounting station. The rivets are then fastened to firmly hold the hinges to the wood member at a rivet fastening station. A suitable logo may be printed on the wood members in the screen printing station and the finished pallet collar components are then stacked at the stacker station.